Winning sentence, 1990 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest:
  "Delores breezed along the surface of her life like a flat stone
  forever skipping along smooth water, rippling reality sporadically
  but oblivious to it consistently, until she finally lost momentum,
  sank, and due to an over-dose of fluoride as a child which caused
  her to suffer from chronic apathy, doomed herself to lie forever
  on the floor of her life as useless as an appendix and as lonely
  as a five-hundred pound barbell in a steroid-free fitness center."


Source Comment:  The contest is actually for the 'best' first sentence
of a novel.  It comes from the writings of Lord Bulwer-Lytton who
wrote the classic line, 'It was a dark and stormy night;' so beloved
of Snoopy in the Peanuts comic strip.

The actual first line from _Paul Clifford_ is as follows:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents --except at
occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind
which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies),
rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame
of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.




Date: Wed, 28 Feb 1996 11:44:34 -0500 (EST)
> 
> 
>    Analogies You Probably Won't Find in Great Literature:  
> 
>   ========================================================
> 
>    He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like
>    a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without
>    one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the
>    country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at
>    a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
>    (Joseph Romm, Washington)
> 
> 
>    She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that
>    used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you
>    banged the door open again. (Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station)
> 
> 
>    The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a
>    bowling ball wouldn't. (Russell Beland, Springfield)
> 
> 
>    McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag 
>    filled with vegetable soup. (Paul Sabourin, Silver Spring)
> 

The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on
vacation in another city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7p.m. instead of 7:30. 
(Roy Ashley, Washington)

> 
>    From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an
>    eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another
>    city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30. 
>    (Roy Ashley, Washington) 
> 
> 
>    Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
>    (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)
> 
> 
>    Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the
>    center. (Russell Beland, Springfield)
> 
> 
>    Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access 
>    T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung
>    by mistake (Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)
> 
> 
>    Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. 
> 
> 
>    He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase) 
> 
> 
>    The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when
>    you fry them in hot grease. (Gary F. Hevel, Silver Spring)
> 
> 
>    Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a
>    movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like
>    "Second Tall Man." (Russell Beland, Springfield)
> 
> 
>    Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced
>    across the grassy field toward each other like two freight
>    trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55
>    mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
>    (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)
> 
> 
>    The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the
>    Dr. on a Dr Pepper can. (Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.) 
> 
> 
>    They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences
>    that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth (Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y.)
> 
> 
>    John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who
>    had also never met. (Russell Beland, Springfield)
> 
> 
>    The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin
>    sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a
>    play. (Barbara Fetherolf, Alexandria)
> 
> 
>    His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances
>    like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)
> 
> 
>    The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon. 
>    (Jennifer Frank and Jimmy Pontzer, Washington and Sterling)
> 





> The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is an annual competition sponsored
> by San
> Jose State University and created by Scott Rice that challenges
> entrants to
> compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.  The
> contest takes its name from Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, an
> industrious
> Victorian novelist whose "Paul Clifford" (1830) set a standard for
> pot-boiling openers:  "It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell
> in
> torrents except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a
> violent
> gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our
> scene
> lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty
> flame
> of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
>
> "Sultry it was and humid, but no whisper of air caused the plump,
> laden
> spears of golden grain to nod their burdened heads as they unheedingly
> awaited the cyclic rape of their gleaming treasure, while overhead the
> burning orb of luminescence ascended its ever-upward path toward a
> sweltering celestial apex, for although it is not in Kansas that our
> story
> takes place, it looks godawful like it."
>    Judy Frazier, Lathrop, MO, 1991 Winner
>
> "The hail pattered against the window like popcorn popping in a
> well-buttered saucepan; the lightning flashed like a lightbulb when
> the
> refrigerator door is opened; the thunder rumbled distantly like a
> single,
> lonely chocolate bonbon rolling about in the cookie jar. All of these
> things
> kept Cherry awake as she tried to keep her mind off of her diet."
>    Laurie M. Tossing, Mesa, AZ
>
> "Among us comedy writers, the pun is considered the lowest form of
> humor
> and a sure sign of burnout, which is why when I tried to sneak one by,
> my
> associates had me committed to the Institute for Disturbed Comic
> Writers at
> Vail, Colorado.  So I now know why they say 'Use a pun, go to Vail!"
>    Robert M. Quan, San Francisco, CA
>
> "Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her from
> eeking out a living at a local pet store."
>    Richard W. O'Bryan, Perrysburg, OH
>
> "He died as he had lived, a dirt-poor but happy farmer, Mother
> Nature's
> caretaker in the heartland of America, and now as his son, Bud,
> listened to
> the reading of his father's will, bequeathing his last earthly
> possession, a
> female sheep, he could hear his father's pun-loving voice resounding
> in the
> lawyer's reading of 'This ewe's for Bud."
>    Jack Markov, Philadelphia, PA
>
> "Gloria was a woman of violent contrasts: her navel as white, soft,
> and
> desirable, was an innie, while her car, black, swift, and powerful,
> was an
> Audi."
>    Brian W. Holmes, San Jose, CA
>
> "'My left eye has been slowly shifting over to the right side of my
> face!'
> she floundered."
>    Trevor Dennie, Gloversville, NY
>
> "Adam woke with a stitch in his side and a strange woman in his bed."
>    Stephen P. Scheinberg, Wilmington, DE
>
> "Pondering her predicament, Susie Jo-Ellen could sense a solution
> forming
> in the back of her mind, but getting it to the front of her mind was
> like
> the long, slow, twisting, tortuous journey of water through the
> corroded,
> mineral-encrusted, lime-laced West Texas water pipes, and like the
> water,
> when it finally got there, it was no good."
>    Pam N. Shurley, San Angelo, TX
>
> "Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn't know the meaning
> of
> the word 'fear', a man who could laugh in the face of danger and spit
> in the
> eye of death; in short, a moron with suicidal tendencies."
>    Eddie Lawhorn, Huntsville, AL
>
> "He was a man of principle with hair as orange as those soft spongy
> cones
> you see lined up on the highway just before a road worker sticks a
> stop sign
> out right in front of your car so a bulldozer can cross the road at
> two
> miles per hour to totally screw up your whole day."
>    June Obrochta, Pittsburg, CA
>
> "Being turned into a cockroach was a shock of epic proportions, but at
> least Twinkies still tasted the same."
>    Jeremy Rice, San Jose, CA
>
> "Something told Dorothy she was not in Kansas anymore; maybe it was
> the
> color of the sky, maybe it was the air around her, maybe it was the
> sign on
> the side of the road that said, 'Welcome to Missouri."
>    Kevin J. Day, Richmond Hts., MO
>
> "There was something about her that turned Kamuk on: perhaps it was
> her
> hair; perhaps it was her body; perhaps it was her husky voice (so
> husky it
> would pull a dog sled); no, it was definitely the way she clubbed
> seals."
>    Kyle B. Crocker, Spokane, WA
>
> "Hallowe'en's coming... Our story commences with an account of the
> ghoulish
> death of the Duke of Breathwaite which, although of little importance
> to the
> main events unfolding herein, establishes the atmosphere quite
> nicely."
>    Michael Haynes, Lantz, Nova Scotia
>
> "The evilly gibbous moon shed its leering light upon the moor and the
> running figure of Ronald Brownley, who, with hands clutching the
> forbidden
> amulet and ears filled with the hellish ululation of thousands of
> bounding,
> spectral hounds, realized that it had been he, and he alone, who'd
> cast the
> horribly portentous deciding vote against the town's leash law."
>    Joette M. Rozanski, Toledo, OH
>
> "It was at moments like this, with the snow drifting gently past the
> window
> on a crisp winter night as he sat in front of the crackling fire
> holding her
> hand and gazing into her eyes, that he often wondered what had become
> of the
> rest of her."
>    Peter Tilley, Englewood, CO
>
> "The first indication I had that things were not quite as they should
> be in
> my host's household was when I noticed that his butler dragged his
> foot
> behind him . . . on a rope."
>    Richard W. O'Bryan, Perrysburg, OH
>
> "The partially clouded moon rose like a half-eaten marshmallow over a
> weenie-roasted horizon, making the field of dead Girl Scouts look even
> more
> grim and foreboding, in spite of the unusual crispness of the air."
>    Margaret Baker, Philadelphia, PA
>
>
"After sending in my entries for the Style Invitational, I feel
relieved and apprehensive, like a little boy who has just wet his
bed."  (Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.)

"You made my day, even a day as gray as white cotton sheets washed
for decades in cold water without bleach like no self-respecting woman
who came of age in the 1940s would allow in her house, much less on
one of her beds, but up with which she must put whenever she visits
one of her own daughters, just as if they had never been brought up
right."  (DEV, Madison, Wis)






From the Style Invitational Report (Washington Post) from Week 120:

In which we asked you to come up with bad analogies. The results were
great, though we feel compelled to point out that there is a fine line
between an analogy that is so bad it is good and an analogy that is so
good it is bad. See what we mean:


4th Runner-Up:
"Oooo, he smells bad, she thought, as bad as Calvin Klein's Obsession
would smell if it were called Enema and was made from spoiled
Spamburgers instead of natural floral fragrances."
(Jennifer Frank, Washington, and Jimmy Pontzer, Sterling)

3rd Runner-Up:
"The baseball player stepped out of the box and spit like a fountain
statue of a Greek god that scratches itself a lot and spits brown,
rusty tobacco water and refuses to sign autographs for all the little
Greek kids unless they pay him lots of drachmas."  
(Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)


2nd Runner-Up:
"I felt a nameless dread.  Well, there probably is a long German name
 for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I don't speak
 German.  Anyway, it's a dread that nobody knows the name for, like
 those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags.  I don't
 know the name for those either."  (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)

1st Runner-Up:
"She was as unhappy as when someone puts your cake out in the rain,
 and all the sweet green icing flows down and then you lose the recipe,
 and on top of that you can't sing worth a damn."
 (Joseph Romm, Washington)

And the winner of the framed Scarlet Fever sign:
"His fountain pen was so expensive it looked as if someone had grabbed
 the pope, turned him upside down and started writing with the tip of
 his big pointy hat." (Jeffrey Carl, Richmond)



Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its 2 other sides
gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East
River.

The door had been forced, as forced as the dialogue during the
interview portion of "Jeopardy!".

Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil.  But unlike Phil,
this plan just might work.

The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating
for a while.

"Oh, Jason, take me!" she panted, her breasts heaving like a college
freshman on $1-a-beer night.

He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck either, but
a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine
or something.

Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell
butter from I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.

She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes
just before it throws up.

It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had
ever seen before.

The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg
behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

The revelation that his marriage of 30 yrs had disintegrated
came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.

The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric
fan set on medium.

It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with
power tools.

He was deeply in love.  When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as
if she were a garbage truck backing up.

She was as easy as the "TV Guide" crossword.

Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any
PH cleanser.

She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was
room-temperature Canadian beef.

She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a first-generation
thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened.

It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to
the wall.